Friday, April 28, 2006

It is finished. The story currently titled Europa, Deep and Cold, which I've been working on for maybe three years now--and thinking about and gathering research materials on for probably twice as long--is wholly and completely rewritten and exists in final form.

Yesterday's post about the upcoming World Fantasy Con shamed me. My production of late has been awful. Counting the physical/emotional aversion I developed toward writing late last year and the pressures on my time due to Orion's birth, well, I haven't been productive at all. I've done some work here and there on my second interview collection, script work, some short story stuff and a bit on the languishing novel. But Europa was the proverbial elephant in the living room. It'd gone through Turkey City and gotten qualified praise. It was the most ambitious thing I'd ever attempted to write. The rewrite was a massive undertaking. And I was avoiding with all my might the prospect of finishing the task.

So last night I confronted myself and said I wouldn't make any meaningful progress on any other project until Europa was out of the way. So I sat myself down and wouldn't let me get up until it was done. Period. No excuses.

That's not as impressive a line in the sand as it sounds. Maybe 95 percent of the rewrite had already been finished. But there was one passage that opened the story that was giving me a hell of a hard time. It was originally a transition from the midpoint of the piece, which got moved to the beginning when I restructured everything. The section borders on poetic, with lots of metaphor and convoluted language. Honestly, I'd never been entirely comfortable with that section. It's not my normal style of writing, and I thought it disrupted the flow of the story. But it was universally praised at Turkey City, and my peers thought it worked well in that context.

It wasn't working as the story opening, though. Set an entirely wrong tone for the following story. I struggled and fought, and at one point cut it entirely. That didn't feel right, because who gets rid of the one section that readers like the most? Then it hit me--it worked best as a transition in the middle of the tale, so why not move it back to the middle? Wham! Just like that, everything fell into place. I found the perfect spot--which coincidentally needed a more elaborate transition, because of Big Things happening--and just like that, the rewrite was complete.

It should've been completed two years ago. I know that. Eileen Gunn asks me every time I see her if I've finished it yet. Lots of people know about it, and ask if it's been published. I didn't finish it in a timely manner, I think, because I really stretch myself in it. I go out on a limb, and I don't like the idea of that much effort generating rejection. And if it does sell somewhere, it's doubtful I could follow up with another hard science fiction piece, because that's not something that comes easy. Fear of failure, fear of success. How's that for a Dr. Phil moment? But the beast is finished, rewrites complete and it's ready to be sent to Analog.

The punchline to this story is that after all that internal angst and creative struggle, my printer refused to print at midnight last night. Talk about anti-climactic...

What? You mean that since San Antonio told the Marlins to either put up or shut up, the Marlins have been making nice with South Florida? I am shocked! Shocked I tell you!

Wolff acknowledged Thursday that lines of communication with the Marlins have gone dead since his decision two weeks ago to give the club a May 15 deadline to commit to San Antonio.

"Every day that goes by, I think there is less and less chance of getting anything done," Wolff said.

Apparently put off by Wolff's deadline, the Marlins are considering at least one new proposal designed to keep the team in South Florida. According to the Miami Herald, officials in Hialeah, Fla., are putting together a plan to provide free land for a new stadium and impose a new business property tax to raise funds for construction.

....

Echoing comments made two weeks ago by County Commissioner Lyle Larson, Wolff said in the future San Antonio should deal with teams and leagues simultaneously. That way, Larson has said, the city can avoid being used by owners seeking leverage for stadium deals in their own cities.

"If there is a next time, they need to come in a united way and not just in a 'we're-thinking-about-it' mode," Wolff said. "The league and the team considering relocation need to come hand-in-hand and say, 'We need to come to your (city). What will you do?'"

Once again, it's pretty clear that the Marlins were only listening to San Antonio's $200 million offer in order to use it as leverage against their current landlords. Once SA made it clear it wouldn't be content to serve merely as leverage, the Marlins abruptly and completely lost interest. Same song, 237th verse...

Thursday, April 27, 2006

I just got in the third progress report for this year's World Fantasy Convention. The main thing this progress report does is serve to remind me that I'm way behind on my novel's progress. If I plan to have something in decent enough shape to pitch to all those editors gathered in Austin, then I really, really need to get on the stick and stop using Orion as an excuse to procrastinate.

This progress report also contains the World Fantasy Award nomination ballot. There are categories open for Grand Master, Novel, Novella, Short Fiction, Anthology, Collection, Artist and two Special Awards, professional and non-professional. I haven't read all that much fantasy lately--actually, I haven't read all that much fiction at all--so I'll have to think long and hard about any nominees. I'll probably have to leave most of them blank.

The other interesting thing about the progress report is the membership list. It's growing. Boy howdy, is it growing. And there are a lot of interesting people planning on attending. Some I haven't seen in close to a decade, some I've wanted to meet for a long time. Right. Back to writing.

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

The first passion flower I ever saw--15 years or so ago--was a wild incarnata growing on an exotic livestock farm my family owns. I had no clue what it was at the time, of course, but thought it beautiful. I also figured it was a swamp plant, since it was growing near an irrigation canal and the ground was somewhat boggy. There was nothing tall for 50 yards in any direction, so I didn't know it was normally a climber. Also, when I was working on the game-proof fencing back then, I found a number of them climbing up the fence. There were no flowers to be seen, which is why I didn't recognize them, but plenty of fruit. I guessed they might be some sort of wild cucumber or melon. When my in-laws gave me a couple of Incense suckers a year or so back, and the plants started flowering, I figured out what my mystery flower at the deer farm was. As my passiflora obsession grew, I knew I wanted to collect some of this first species I ever encountered.

So over the weekend I had a chance to go back there for the first time in two years or so. The first time since I'd learned what passion flowers were. I definitely wanted to try and collect some plants for my yard--and also for trade.

Unfortunately, I could not find any growing in grassy field where I first encountered them. That was disappointing, but not unexpected, since those fields have been plowed, shredded and who knows what else over the years. Nor were any growing along the tree line, drainage ditches or wild hedges I had easy access to. I did see a number of vigorously growing vines--6 feet tall or more--but they were all on the opposite of the 8-foot-tall game-proof fence, along the berm containing the irrigation canal. Along with all manner of other vines and thick brush. None of it easily accessible.

I was able to pull up one vine vine growing close to the fence and get a little bit of the root (maybe an inch or two of white root material) but nothing of the deeper rhizome. I was also able to reach two other vines through the fence with the shovel and remove the tops, in hopes of making rooted cuttings. But what I really and truly wanted and needed was a big piece of root, preferrably attached to vine.

I finally spotted one that wasn't too thickly entangled in brush--or so I thought. It was near a turn in the fence, where an old telephone pole buttressed the fence. I could climb here. Not easily, but passable nonetheless. Imagine my surprise (and dismay) when, near the top, hordes of fire ants began pouring out of the pole. Not the ground around it, but the pole itself! And me, with nowhere to go.

I scrambled over the top with minimal stings, amazingly enough, half-jumping, half-falling into a weedy, prickly bush that was only distantly related to cacti. I was scratched, stung and sore already, but my fun was just beginning. Anyone in the southern U.S. should be familiar with dewberries, a tart, delicious wild relative of the blackberry. They grow rampant, and have insanely thorny canes. There were a lot here that I had to wade through to reach the "accessible" incarnata I'd spotted. There was also another vine, one that had pretty, tri-lobed, variegated leaves. Not entirely un-passiflora-like. Except this wicked thing was everywhere, and had big, evil thorns. I started wishing for more dewberries when I hit those woody, thorny vines. And, as fate would have it, those were wrapped all around the lone incarnata I was striving for.

So what should've been a simple, quick dig turned into an ordeal of disentangling Thorn vines, dewberry canes and random brush branches from this one, slender passion vine. It was a 30 minute battle just to get a clear view of the dirt underneath, in which to dig. That poor incarnata took quite a beating, I'm afraid. Not much of the vine, or the leaves, survived. I finally got a good, 8-inch C-shaped section of the roots up. Sweaty, hot (mercury hit the high 80s) with my arms and legs really ripped up pretty convincingly, I started back through the gauntlet of fire ants with my prize.

It was then I realized my glasses were missing. I only use them for distance viewing. I'd been wearing them as I searched for passion vines in the thick greenery, but had put them in my shirt pocket once I'd started in on my quarry. Looking back through the sea of blood-thirsty, vampiric plants, I saw the tell-tale glint of light against glass right there at the hole. They'd fallen out when I bent down to lift out the incarnata roots. sigh Once more, into the breach.

The fun winds down pretty quickly after that. I retrieved my glasses and made it back over the fence without breaking anything vital. I wrap the vines and roots up in paper towels, bag them, and wet everything down thoroughly to keep it viable until I return home. The long and short of it is that I got one good, rooted plant with enough of the vine surviving to pot up with a high degree of confidence. I dipped the partial root that I collected earlier in rooting hormone, trimmed the vine back, and potted it as well. The rest, I cut up, dipped in hormone and potted in hopes of coaxing them to grow roots. Out of all that effort, these are my results:

Belatedly, I discovered that one of the vines was setting flower buds like crazy. Had to pick all of those off. My track record with cuttings has been inconsistent, with failures outnumbering my successes by a 2:1 margin but I'm hoping to get some good results out of these. I've got 14 different cuttings and/or roots going here, and hopefully I'll have plenty of extra for trade in a few months. Incarnata are native and produce edible fruit, unlike my Incense. So I look forward to seeing what the future holds with these.

I know the effort to get the incarnata specimins is way disproportionate for the plants' value--especially when any Tom, Dick and Harry could easily get them from eBay or the odd plant nursery. But hey, this was the plant that sparked my love for passis, so it became a personal mission.

Yes, I'm obsessive over passion flowers. Just how obsessive will become apparent in a future entry. But there's just something special about that first bloom of the spring, that compels me to share it with you:

This is my passionflower "Incense," a hybrid planted in front of my house. No matter how many times I see the flowers, they always stop me in their tracks with their showy beauty. And this pic doesn't do it justice--there's a kind of magenta glow to the flower that's washed out in the pic. Simply stunning. Hopefully, some of the other passiflora species I have planted here and there will start flowering before long.

Monday, April 24, 2006

How can you tell when the national immigration debate has reached saturation point and seeped too deeply into the public's consciousness? When your wife starts having dreams about it.

Lisa told me this morning she dreamed she'd walked with the girls to the school bus stop (which, oddly enough, was beside railroad tracks). Suddenly, everyone started screaming and pointing to the sky, where thousands of heavily armed paratroopers were pouring out of giant transport planes high above. It was like a scene from Red Dawn. Lisa grabbed our children and rushed back to our house (which, in dreamland, had morphed into an apartment complex). Once there, she realized that the invaders were wearing U.S. uniforms. Puzzling, no? Why were they attacking? Then she learned they were immigration troops.

There was a national, no-tolerance crackdown on immigration under way. And by no tolerance, I mean no tolerance. Every single human being living in the U.S. was required to prove their citizenship or legal immigrant status. Lisa, at gunpoint, was forced to produce her birth certificate and those of our kids in order to avoid being herded into cages--yes, cages--and trucked away.

But it didn't end there. Apparently, birth certificates were pretty flimsy proof for the new, get-tough INS. So an agent began interviewing her. Where was she born? Where were her children born? Where were her parents born? At this point, Lisa begins panicking, hoping that they wouldn't ask where her grandparents were born, because she'd have to answer, "Czechoslovakia," as sure a one-way ticket to deportation central as anything.

There's some pretty poignant insight and social commentary there, if you ask me.

Friday, April 21, 2006

When we moved into our current house a few years back, I put up a chainlink fence to serve as a dog run. And one of the first things I did after that was plant some Orlando seedless grapes in hopes they would overgrow the fence and create an attractive arbor. Not to mention produce edible grapes. I could've gone with something like Champanel or Spanish black, but I wanted grapes that could be eaten off the vine. And the sweet Old World table grapes would be wiped out by Pierce's disease here in Texas. Since Orlando is a newer type with Pierce's resistance, I took a leap of faith and went with them.

They grew fairly well the first year, but the weather was wet and various fungal diseases kept knocking them back. Last summer was rough on them. It was hot and dry, and although I was able to keep disease under control fairly easily, they didn't grow much. In all honesty, I was getting ready to give up on them, deciding they were unsuited for my area. I didn't even prune the side branches back over the winter.

That just shows what I know. Those two Orlandos have exploded with new growth this spring, overrunning the top of the fence with their vigor, something they've never done before. I'm assuming they've finally developed a root system they're happy with. This vigor has caught me completely by surprise, but even moreso, a couple of days ago I found racemes of tiny, baby grapes! I was, suffice to say, elated. I planned to take pics when I got home yesterday and post here for all to marvel at.

Alas, such celebration is not to be. Something--something buggy, I'll wager, but no culprits have been spotted--has devoured almost every single one of my proto-grape. Woe, despair and agony on me! There will be no grape crop for me this year.

All is not sadness in mudville, however. This morning while mourning my lost grapes, I discovered three new shoots for a recently planted incarnata passion vine sprouting up a short way down the fence. If I can somehow manage to protect them from sun scald at this tender stage while reigning in my tendancy to over-water, I'll be one happy camper.

Thursday, April 20, 2006

I haven't inflicted images of my youngest on the public since his birth, so I figured it was high time I did so. First up, we see him getting ready for his eventual stint as a Yell Leader at A&M. I'm not sure if he's trying to lead the crowd in a rousing rendition of "Squads Left..." or "Farmers Fight." But there's plenty of time for him to work on his nuance.

But being a rational and understanding father, I accept the fact that Orion may decide that A&M isn't the place for him--particularly if he wants a criminal justice or geography degree. In which case, there's Texas State just a short drive from home. So, courtesy of my boss at work, Orion's already getting that Bobcat pride.

The good news is that these two schools' colors are mutually compatible. Don't think that salient little fact has escaped our notice!

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Now this is an interesting bit of trivia: For the first time since the Colt .45s sported a 6-6 record in their first month of existance, the Houston Astros have reached the .500 mark with their all-time won-loss record:

Morgan Ensberg hit two home runs, Adam Everett had four RBIs and the Astros held on for a 13-12 win over the Milwaukee Brewers on Tuesday night.

The win, Houston's fourth straight, puts the franchise at .500 for the first time since the Colt-.45s, as the team was known, were 6-6 before a 2-1 loss to the Milwaukee Braves on April 27, 1962. The franchise record is 3,507-3,507, making Houston the 13th team in the majors with a record of .500 or better.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

The mercury broke the century mark here yesterday. That's over 100 degrees in April! I know Texans always brag/bitch about how hot it gets in this state, but even here, that's just flat-out wrong. Temps shouldn't approach 90 until May at the earliest, yet here were are, registering 102 degrees in San Antonio at Kelly USA (although the official high was "only" 99) and Austin setting a record of 100 for April.

The combination of high temperatures and many Texas power plants being off-line for scheduled maintenance during a traditionally low-demand time of the year resulted in statewide rolling blackouts:

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the statewide grid, ordered the rolling blackouts because some power plants in Texas weren't prepared for summerlike heat in April.

The normal high for San Antonio in April is 80 degrees, the National Weather Service said.

San Antonio's official high of 99, though short of the record for April 17 of 100, set in 1920, contributed to the statewide drain on the Texas power grid.

"At the same time, we have many power plants in Texas that are down for maintenance, so they can be up and fully operational this summer," McCullough said.

Monday's blackouts came as surprise and were needed "to preserve the integrity of the state grid. I don't think anyone really forecasts that energy demand in April would be so high," he said.

I had first-hand experience with the heat. On the drive home, I ran into a traffic jam on I-35. There'd been a wreck in a construction zone on the north end of New Braunfels, wholly blocking the highway and forcing all traffic to divert to the access roads. As I sat there, unmoving, I watched as the temperature guage on my car climbed higher and higher--alarmingly so. It never reached the "red zone," but that's only because I shut the air conditioner off, rolled down the windows and ran the heater at full blast for 15 minutes or so to cool the radiator off. It got pretty hairy there for a few minutes, I can assure you.

So, the next time some wingnut spouts off that there's no evidence for global warming and how it's just a liberal/commie conspiracy designed to undermine the good ol' U.S. of A., would you please kick them in the ass for me?

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Hey kids! My new review of Whisper of the Heart is now online over at RevolutionSF:

Watching Whisper of the Heart is a bittersweet experience, notable as much for what might have been as for what it is. With Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata both aging, the Studio Ghibli founders wisely decided younger directors needed cultivation if the animation studio was to continue long into the future. So Yoshifumi Kondo was tapped to direct Whisper of the Heart, a coming-of-age fable developed by Miyazaki, and the film was released in 1995. Unfortunately, Kondo's untimely death ensured that Whisper of the Heart would be remembered more as an epitaph than the debut of Stuidio Ghibli's next generation.

It's a pretty good film, if a little too quiet for its own good. But I still recommend it.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

I stopped off at Lowe's yesterday to browse their plant section, and see if there was anything of interest. I was delighted to see they had a section of passion flowers set up, with more than a dozen vigorous vines growing in gallon pots.

I blogged about my incense passion vines last summer, so passiflora are a pretty consistent obsession of mine. So much so that I noticed right away the vines Lowes had labled as incense were nothing of the sort. The three-lobed leaves were very different in shape from the five-lobed incense leaves. Other stuff was wrong, too. I sorted through the plants, my curiosity growing, and then I found this:

It wasn't incense at all--it was Amethyst! That or Lavender Lady. Amethyst is a hybrid that's more than a century old, that I'd wanted for a long time. Lavender Lady is a newer hybrid that I didn't want quite so much, but even so, it was too good an opportunity to pass up. I grabbed it, and a one gallon vitifolia as well. I pointed out the labeling error to the Lowes workers, but they didn't seem to care much. When I got home and checked some books, it did indeed appear that I'd gotten my sought-after Amethyst. Very cool.

I plan on potting both in hanging baskets this evening to hang on the porch. When they get a little bigger, I hope to layer some of the vines in pots so that they'll root and propogate. Much fun. And it makes me happy to know I'm smarter than the folks at Lowes.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Dr Pepper's recently introduced a new flavor, Dr Pepper Berries & Cream. When Cherry Vanilla Dr Pepper first came out, I wasn't that thrilled. I thought the cherry too strong and the vanilla too weak, but over time I've grown to really like the drink, and usually reach for it ahead of regular Dr Pepper (which has long been my mainstay in the carbonated beverage line).

So with me being a huge raspberry fan, Berries & Cream had me excited. Yum! I couldn't wait to try it.

Then I tried it. It was not love at first taste. I was taken aback by how ambivalent I was about the flavor. Remembering how lukewarm I was about Cherry Vanilla Dr Pepper, I figured I'd give it another try. A week later, I picked up another Berries & Cream bottle. This time I outright disliked it. And I could finally put my finger on it: The raspberry component was too harsh, and tasted artificial. With growing horror, I realized that it reminded me of cough syrup more than anything else. Yuck! My beloved Dr Pepper bottler has feet of clay after all.

Friday, April 07, 2006

Baldo is fast becoming my favorite comic strip, behind Foxtrot. I'm not Hispanic, but being so close to San Antonio has given me an appreciation for Latino humor. But man, this week the creators, Hector D. Cantu and Carlos Castellanos, have really outdone themselves by bringing Battlestar Galactica into the mix:

Damn, that's funny. And the best thing it, I'd love to see Olmos pull this kind of stuff on the show. Best. Battlestar. Ever.

Thursday, April 06, 2006

There's a vacant lot--actually, maybe 2/3 of a lot--in our subdivision that remains undeveloped because of the city's need for utility access, drainage issues, etc. The lot backs up against pastureland, and there's a ditch right along the border with a good deal of standing water.

In this algae-filled environment swim uncountable tadpoles.

The kids in the neighborhood have discovered this, mine being the ringleaders. Catching tadpoles has become the after-school activity, fueled in no small part by Calista's posession of Rocky, a toad she raised from a tadpole bought from a local pet shop. Catching the tadpoles has been more easily said than done--they don't want to be caught, see, and swim away. Enter me, with a simple plastic cup. Dip cup in water with the bottom at a low angle, so water flows into said cup, sucking tadpoles in with it.

Now neighborhood kids come ringing our doorbell, asking if "Calista's Dad" can come out and catch tadpoles with them.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Yahoo News is reporting that Doug Liman, director of "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" is set to start filming a movie version of Steve Gould's novel Jumper beginning in June. The novel's great, and has been optioned time and time again over the years, but just a few weeks ago I'd learned that someone bought the right outright for an impressive chunk of change. Good for Steve! Anything that allows him to devote more time to writing is good news to me. Unfortunately, when I read the Hollywood description of the story, it veers into the Twilight Zone about halfway through the second sentence.

Based on the Steven Gould novel, "Jumper" follows a kid from a broken home who discovers that he can "jump" or teleport from one place to another. In his quest for the man he believes is responsible for the death of his mother, the youngster draws the attention of both the National Security Agency and another boy who has the same abilities.

Tom Sturridge ("Being Julia") will play the protagonist, while fellow BritJamie Bell ("Billy Elliot") is the jumper who shows him the ropes. Australian actress Teresa Palmer ("The Grudge 2") will play the love interest.

The story also says the film is planned to be the first of a trilogy. Good news, since this means more money for Steve and his clan. But I have little hope for Hollywood to be faithful to the source material, and am even more doubtful that the most excellent sequel to Jumper, titled Reflex will bear even a passing semblance to the planned sequel.

For the first time since preliminary talks about a possible Marlins' move to San Antonio began in December, team President David Samson spelled out many details that would have to be met for the club to agree to relocation.

No. 1 is the team's need for a TV deal that would generate millions of dollars per season.

"(Stadium) naming rights, suite deals, season-ticket sales, corporate support — without all of that there is no franchise," Samson said. "But TV revenue is the engine that keeps the train rolling."

This right here tells me the Marlins are now using San Antonio just as every other pro sports franchise flirting with relocation has used the city over the past three decades--as leverage in negotiations with other sites. Of all the economic factors San Antonio has going for it in terms of relocation, television is the weakest link. SA's only the 37th largest television market in the country, and even rolling Austin into the equation (which is a mixed bag), it's still going to be tough to generate the kind of broadcasting revenue the Marlins are getting in south Florida.

FSN Florida, an affiliate of Fox Sports Net, recently received exclusive rights to televise Marlins games in South Florida beginning this season. Samson declined to reveal the amount Fox is paying the Marlins to broadcast as many as 150 of their 162 games.

"The biggest issue we are having right now as we go through the numbers in San Antonio is trying to figure out where we fit in the broadcast market," Samson said.

"It's the No. 1 factor we can't firmly come to grips with, and it's a huge area of competition between Major League Baseball teams and a huge factor in revenue sharing."

Sources said the Marlins already have had exploratory talks with Fox Sports Southwest.

"They are aware of our current situation and recognize the possibility of us moving into one of their markets," Samson said.

San Antonio is the nation's No. 37 media market. Fox Sports Southwest broadcasts Astros games to San Antonio.

Asked what would happen with the Astros and Fox if the Marlins move to San Antonio, Samson said: "It's complicated. A TV territory would have to be carved out and then monetized."

My gut's been telling me for a while now that there's a 75 percent chance of the Marlins staying put and working something out in Miami. Unless the team is in imminent danger of bankruptcy, as were the Montreal Expos, there's no way MLB will allow franchises to move like the NFL or NBA does. Were the Marlins to move, I suspect there's a 75 percent chance the Marlins would land in SA. Ifs and nuts and all that. Time to exhale, folks. Despite all the sound and fury, this one ain't gonna happen.